This past weekend, the Western rowers travelled to Philadelphia to participate in the 74^th annual Dad Vail Regatta.  The Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta is the largest collegiate regatta in the United States, this year with 125 schools in the U.S. and Canada participating.  The Mustangs dominated their events and 3 out of 4 crews came home medal winners—2 gold and 1 bronze! 

Our women’s heavyweight 8+, composed of Natasha Caminsky, Addie Barr, Genevieve Favreau, Charlene Masschelin, Kathleen Morrison, Kristen Bujnowski, Maria Clift, Natalie Connell and Chaundra Manorome participated in the Women’s Varsity Heavyweight Eight event among 51 other crews.  In an extremely competitive category, the crew placed third in their heat, advancing to the rep, where they placed second.  In the semi, the Mustangs placed 6^th, unfortunately not advancing to the final.  This result from such a new crew is promising for the heavyweight women next season! 

Our lightweight women’s 4+, composed of Laura MacLachlan, Sarah Royce, Jill Moffatt, Alyssa Ethier, and Beth Farnell won a very exciting GOLD medal in their category and the Robert Espeseth Trophy!  The women, clad in purple bows and dye in their hair, won the final by 7 seconds, finishing in a time of 7:45.9.  This is another very new crew, where all members raced their first varsity OUAs last fall (in the case of Sarah, Alyssa and Beth) or have yet to do so.  Very exciting things to come for the lightweight women! 
  
Members of our Freshman/Novice 4+—Chris Fernandes, Andrew McGuire, Andrew Boui, Jerome van Leeuwen, and Evan Bertin —all began rowing in the novice rowing program just last fall.  The crew won an impressive BRONZE medal against 49 other crews entered in the event.  The men had an incredible final race on Saturday, pushing from 5^th to 3^rd in the second half of the final, beating UVA to the podium by just 0.3 seconds!   

Finally, our heavyweight men’s 4+, composed of Celine Girard, Alex McCarton, Dakin Wilson, Gianrico DePasquale and Ian Gauld won GOLD and the Thomas A. Curran Cup against 54 other crews in their event.  They were the fastest crews in all heats and semis leading to the final.  The men won their final in a time of 6:46.6, 12 seconds ahead of Cincinnati in second place.  Special shout out to Celine Girard, our novice coxie from the fall who did a fantastic job on a tough course with veteran composure.  Dakin Wilson is now a two time Dad Vail gold winner, as he won the Lightweight Men’s Varsity 4+ in 2010.

Congratulations to all crews and a huge thank you to coaches Dan Bechard, Bob Ward, Andrew Jago, Chris McCully and Matt Waddell who all deserve a medal of their own for their dedication to the team.  These results show great promise for another successful season in Mustangs Rowing next fall!